AUDIOPHILE Acoustic Research ARXB Turntable - DIY Rebuild with Modifications!

[@ronmatthews1738]

I really enjoyed this video. It makes a change to see someone doing a restoration that anyone could do with basic tools, rather than needing a state-of-the-art woodworking workshop with CNC machines, table saws, milling machines etc.

[@bkatbamna]

That is spectacular. In a blinded test, the AR turntable was indistinguishable from a turntable set up costing over $200,000 US.

[@danknox9986]

Very nice. Thanks for posting.

[@vintageboulton]

Your welcome 🙏

[@Zwakkie05]

You have outdone yourself by renovating this turntable, it looks great 😄👍🏻

[@vintageboulton]

Awww thankyou! 🙏

[@EddyTeetree]

The “Philosophers Stone” of turntables. Said by some who know to equal or even out perform modern iterations of the genre in the stratospheric price range. Manufactured before “at the price point” became a thing. You must be very happy! Oh sh*t sorry he removed the original arm??? Omg thats an integral part of it. Its now like drinking a glass of water……. without the water.

[@GeraldECurtis]

Great job! Really enjoyed your creative approach. Turned out great.

[@AudioNovice]

That is a beautiful turntable, awesome job

[@kodithebear]

Wow! Dude that looks awesome!

[@vintageboulton]

Thank you so much

[@ccrm10]

That is excellent! You did a great job! I need to pull out my AR XB and try some of your mods. Thanks!

[@deepvillage]

looking good done w aplomb .. I'm in the process of redoing the Technics SP10 /2 new plinth etc

[@moviesbyderby]

Well done! Really innovative, yet pragmatic solutions.

[@vintageboulton]

Thanks for your support! That pretty much sums up how I've been doing all of this 😊

[@Skellingtor]

Great restoration

[@vintageboulton]

Thankyou 🙏

[@ML-rm3vk]

Lovely upgrade I own one of those but a manual.cheers

[@rgorkeguitar]

Well done!!! Similar to my restoration!

[@vintageboulton]

Sweet, I'd love to see it!

[@rgorkeguitar]

@@vintageboulton not sure how to post a picture…if it’s even possible.

[@squizznut]

Nice vid mate!!

[@vintageboulton]

Thanks buddy!

[@WACONimages]

Really awesome!

[@SteveL-RSR]

Fantastic

[@vintageboulton]

Thank you, much appreciated!

[@JumbleTasteSpinning]

this video is so amazing... wow ❤

[@MikeHammer1]

I just started restoring (thanks for the inspiration) an AR-XA that was given to me by my Uncle a long time ago (my main TT is a B&O Beogram TX 2 with an MMC3 cartridge). Interestingly, the tonearm is missing the original head shell. In its place is a Sansui head shell that fits perfectly. It weighs 8.4 grams, slightly more than the OEM part, but looks way better. I will be using a lightweight cartridge, so the extra mass should not be an issue. The wood part of my plinth is in pretty good shape so I am leaving it alone for now., I am currently working on the top of the plinth to see if I can get it visually nice, otherwise I may do a repaint. BTW, my AR has two motors, one for 33 1/3 and one for 45 RPM. BTW, nice job.

[@vintageboulton]

Thanks Mike ☺️ Wow that's a win if a sansui headshell fits perfectly onto the original arm wand! I've been able to touch up the top plate on some of these just by masking off some of the other parts with tape and applying a light layer of hammertone black. Good luck with the restoration, your XA will kick ass!

[@MikeHammer1]

@@vintageboulton Given my surname, hammertone paint seems perfect. BTW, the wood part of my plinth is solid walnut, not veneer. I suspect my unit is a very early one but I can't decipher the serial number. Any sources for that? Anyway it's 2:30 AM here so I'm marching off to bedlam now.

[@vintageboulton]

@@MikeHammer1 yeah all the ARXA's were a real wood plinth. Then the XB was changed to a chipboard with a vinyl wrap unfortunately. You would indeed have an early XA with the two motors 👍

[@MikeHammer1]

@@vintageboulton Yeah, the two motors thing is weird, initially I thought that they were for the two different speeds, but apparently one uses a skinny round belt to drive the other one. Not sure if it is just to get it to start in the right direction and/or possibly manage wow and flutter. I've never seen anything like that before. Also, the shafts on both of these motors are ridiculously skinny, like 1/16". I have already disassembled and cleaned them earlier today. The driving motor is marked 600RPM and the driven one 300RPM. The ratio between the two pulley sheaves looks to be 2:1, which makes sense. BTW, the Sansui head shell comes from a model FR-5080 direct drive TT. I wish I had that TT and the AR head shell instead. The design is similar to the Technics SL-1300 which I used to own and have long regretted selling even though I got 2X what I paid for it. The Sansui is every bit as beautiful. One last thing - do you know where I can buy replacement tonearm pivots and tonearm wiring loom? Both need replacing for the TT to be functional.

[@vintageboulton]

@@MikeHammer1 some people convert them to a single motor. If your 300rpm motor is a Hurst or Haydon then I think it's a matter of taking out the 600rpm and putting the 300rpm in it's place, but you'll need to find a new pulley to compensate. Are you in the US? It would be a 60hz pulley which you might find second hand or Vinyl Nirvana sell them new(made out of delrin) Do you mean the pivot pins? Or the whole vertical assembly? If it's the pins you may need to buy some Grub screws and polish them down to a point or salvage some from a donor Turntable. Depending on their size you may need to tap a new thread. If it's the whole assembly then your best bet is eBay. The wiring can be found also on eBay, you'll want at least 33 gauge wire. Cardas litz silver wire is expensive stuff but I go for plain old insulated copper. Check my channel for the tonearm video I made :)

[@cooper6086]

👍 great job.....

[@buskman3286]

Interesting video and nicely done work! FWIW, The biggest "improvement" you can make on the PERFORMANCE of an AR XA or XB is to restore it to completely original. No modern suspension springs - which are much too stiff and definitely no arm change. The original arm design AND head shell is far more sophisticated performance-wise than its appearance suggests. Changing the arm to pretty much any of the common "upgrades" reduces the TTs performance capability. Sadly one very important issue is a proper belt. AFAIK, there are no belts available for these turntables that match the originals which were individually ground by AR on both sides to exact specs. No modern belt is made that way/has the same level of precision. As a result, flutter figures may suffer compared to a new AR TT in the 1960's. New motors are unnecessary and will not improve anything over a properly functioning original motor. If you look at the capability of a like-new AR XA/XB as far as PLAYING a record, there is no spec that can be (or needs to be) improved in order to "play a record better." I have an XA and an XB as well as several modern TTs costing multi-thousands of dollars. Using the same Ortofon cartridge, ONLY the ARs (all original) will track the cannon shots at the end of the original Telarc 1812 Overture at 1.7 grams - the recommended cartridge setting. At the same setting, the modern (expensive) TTs with all the fancy bells/whistles, will bounce the cartridge/arm completely off the record at the 1.7 gram setting. It takes 3 grams for them to track the shots and even then, they will mistrack the last (loudest) shot. IOW, that record is essentially unplayable on TTs that cost from 5 to 10x as much as the 2023 inflation-corrected price of an AR XA - $749. That is based on the selling price of $78 in the mid 1960's. The ONLY functional item I would add/change on an ARXA or XB is to purchase a "LITTLE FWEND Automatic Tonearm Lifter." Yeah, hokey name but it works really well and is small/elegant in appearance and doesn't look too out-of-place on the TT. Personally I like the XA's appearance much more than the XB but the XB's tonearm cue is nice thing... ;) So an XB with an XA-type plinth would be great if you want/need the cuing. ;)

[@johnnytk1]

hi im just learning about my recently aquired XB - but i know enough not to mess with anything - im running 2g on a goldring elan - is it better if i can get away with 1.7g?

[@fredemny3304]

Agreed. You never change an AR arm if you want the turntable to function as intended. Classic mistake.

[@azoique]

Beautiful!

[@vintageboulton]

Thank you so much!

[@hitechrr]

I bought mine in 1977 and shill have it in the original box.

[@mgsee]

Top plate not to my taste, but an excellent job overall and I enjoyed watching your restoration process.

[@vintageboulton]

Thank you! Appreciate the feedback ☺️

[@russellparker4568]

@@vintageboultonI like it, it’s different, I like different.

[@danbiales1296]

There is no accounting for tastes ...

[@lincmerc1581]

Were AR tt's ever used in broadcasting? I'd love an old Russco or Collins tt.

[@vintageboulton]

No they weren't, more aimed at the home hifi lover. Broadcast tt's were more often idler or direct drive because they were literally never turned off in lots of studios. A belt would slacken quickly under that much play. I have always lusted over Gate and Russco's but they didn't make them for 50hz countries (that I know of)

[@lincmerc1581]

@@vintageboulton Thanks for educating me on that. Good to know!

[@ScottFrye000111222]

Scott from the Colonies in the north...HOW did you get the pulley off of the motor?

[@vintageboulton]

I used two spoons on each side as leverage. Might work best if the motor is still attached to the top plate

[@alexandrosiliadis4866]

❤❤❤

[@kevinmcgrath3591]

so thats where Linn Sondek got their ideas from ...........

[@kwatch1215]

where did you get the sapphire cups?

[@trevor245]

What exactly was the point of putting on a technics arm wand? I understand that The headshell design on the AR arms wears down but I feel like with an entirely different different arm wand you'd need to entire recalibrate the arm position among other things which I do not believe you have done. Seems like a bit of a weird modification to me. Why not just swap over a different sme connector instead?

[@vintageboulton]

It makes for easy work when swapping cartridges on regular sme headshells(which I do a lot) Proper tracking force, overhang and null point adjustment is always necessary when changing a cartridge, which I do on this setup no problems 👍

[@trevor245]

@@vintageboulton The arm tube is not the same as the AR arm tube so the arm itself should have been in a slightly different position to correct for tracking error. This can be done by overhang andjustment and maybe slightly tilting the cartrdige but ideally you'd want to avoid this. And again, why not just swap over the sme connector from the technics arm? Pretty sure that would fit or you could get something similar too fit, the AR arm connector is fairly similar to the sme connector regardless.

[@vintageboulton]

@@trevor245 Other people have done this and I may attempt it on another build 👍

[@fredemny3304]

It's a complete f*ck-up to to alter the AR arm. It completely alters the way the deck works. Ed Villchur will be spinning in his grave. 😟

[@nefertemra]

The only drawback to the original AR Turntable is the Tonearm if you build a bigger plinth I would of upgraded the Tonearm to

[@Poppinwheeeeellllllieeeeez]

The plinth could have been a bit bigger.

[@robertstambulovski]

Yeh di didn't like the top plate either ' rest of the resto is fine '

[@nellyt2807]

Top plate is quite awful sorry

[@ba9atman]

Aaaaaaaaargh! You've messed with the arm! Classic AR restoration mistake! Sorry dude, massive fail. You cannot do that. 👎

[@narabdela]

Noooooooooooo! That's a FrankenARXB. Shame on you for creating that abomination. 😧👎

[@milesdufourny4813]

Surprised you didn't find an old Shure M91ED cartridge to put on it.

[@vintageboulton]

Same cartridge basically 😊 I'm also certain from memory I ripped this stylus from the m91 and put it into the m75